


Occupying a Detective

by trustingHim17



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Chemistry, Gen, Injury, Worried John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24918979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: Of all the things Watson wanted to do on his return from a short vacation, 'find Holmes unconscious on his bedroom floor' was certainly not one of them. Set after Devil's Foot
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For BrokenKestral, who requested Watson in "doctor mode, after Devil's Foot"

The cab pulled up in front of Baker Street, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My long weekend in the countryside had been wonderfully relaxing, but a delayed train combined with the downpour currently washing London meant I was more than glad to be home. It had been a long day of travel, and I was looking forward to a simple evening in the sitting room while Holmes and I traded stories of the last few days, as we always did after I had been away. I was tired enough to even consider going to bed a trifle earlier than usual.

I opened the door as the cabbie pulled away and stepped inside quickly, trying to keep the pouring rain outside of the flat. Mrs. Hudson came out of the kitchen as the door slammed against the rain, and I greeted her.

“You are soaked through!” she fussed, helping me take off my sopping overcoat, “and you’re late! Did something happen?”

“Not to me,” I replied with a sigh, setting my travel case down for a moment to leave my useless umbrella next to my sodden overcoat and hat. “Another train derailed and blocked my line. We had to wait for them to clear the tracks before my train could get through. Is Holmes in?” After being so late getting home, I had half-expected him to meet me at the door, ostensibly to remonstrate me for not sending word while in reality reassuring himself that I was alright.

“I think he went out,” was her reply. “He mentioned something this morning about being low on supplies for that chemistry set of his, and I haven’t heard a thing since I got home from the market. Have you eaten? I can have an early supper ready soon, if you would like.”

“Please.”

I climbed the stairs as she returned to the kitchen, dropping my travel case in the corner of the landing to take up later, and took my valise into the sitting room.

“Holmes?” I called as I opened the door. “Are you here?”

Silence greeted me, and I started digging through my valise, searching for the few items I preferred to leave in the sitting room and putting them away. I hated having to go through my travel bags whenever I wanted something, always preferring to unpack as quickly as possible, and I may as well begin putting things away while I was up. Once I sat down, I rather doubted I would get up again any time soon, what with the storm outside combining with a tiring day of travel.

When all that remained in my valise were items from my bedroom, I turned to take the valise and my travel case upstairs to finish unpacking. If I could finish before Holmes returned, I wouldn’t have to bother with it later tonight when he would doubtless be telling me about the case that had found him in my absence, for I could think of no other reason for a trip for chemistry supplies to take so long, especially in this weather. He would have been home and waiting by my original arrival time if he had no case.

Something _off_ in the corner of my vision caught my attention, and I glanced over to see what had changed.

The chemistry table was a disaster. The window was wide open, two broken beakers lay amidst a small pool of clear liquid—probably rain, from the open window—and the table was blackened, scorched.

I shook my head, amazed that after all these years he would still leave a mess behind for someone else to clean. I had thought he was past that. Deciding the table was wet enough, I closed the window and mopped up the rainwater. Turning to find something with which to clean up the broken glass, a fleck of color caught my eye, and I looked closer.

There was blood on the table, and there was another drop on the floor.

“Holmes?!”

No answer, and I looked for my medical bag, but the place next to my desk was empty. The rug showed signs of something being dragged, and I followed the marks towards Holmes’ room. The door was closed but unlatched, and I pushed it open.

Something blocked the door’s opening, and I pushed harder, slowly forcing the blockage to move out of the way. After a long minute, I finally got the door to open far enough, and I squeezed through the narrow gap. My breath caught in my throat.

Holmes lay face down on the floor in a slowly growing pool of blood. 

“Holmes!” I choked out, desperately looking for movement, but there was no response. I dropped to the floor next to him, almost frantically feeling his neck for a pulse as I watched for breathing.

His breathing was quick and shallow, nearly wheezing, but for a terrifying moment, I couldn’t find a pulse. When I finally found it, it was rapid and thready. He remained unresponsive when I again loudly called his name, and I gently rolled him over.

His entire front was covered in blood, and I fought to move his clothes to find the injury. The pool had been under his abdomen, and I looked there first, pulling his shirt away to see a deep cut stretching across his stomach.

My bag was what had been blocking the door, and I dragged it out of the way and hurried to the top of the stairs, calling for Mrs. Hudson to bring me some water and towels before returning to Holmes’ side.

I used his ruined shirt to clear away the blood and see what I was dealing with. The cut was deep, and I could tell his abdominal wall had nearly been compromised in two small spots. I could find no evidence of internal injury, however, so I focused on the gash itself, applying pressure with one hand while I dug in my bag with the other.

I was readying the sutures when I heard Mrs. Hudson hurrying up the stairs.

“In here, Mrs. Hudson!” I called when she hesitated, and her footsteps grew louder.

“Brace,” I said reflexively just before she entered, not wanting to startle her too much with the pool of blood on the floor. Though quite capable of helping out, we had found out the hard way not to spring something like this on her.

She hesitated for the briefest moment as my warning registered before entering the room to set the water and towels at my side.

“What happened and what can I do?” she asked, her voice quivering slightly, though more out of worry than at the sight of blood.

“Experiment exploded,” I replied shortly, my focus on the initial sutures in front of me. “Hold the wound closed and wipe away the blood as I suture. Do you see any other injuries?” I had not noticed any other major ones, but it was always better to look again, and I could not easily look up from the stitches I was carefully tying.

“Burns on his hands,” she pointed out, and I glanced down. His hands were bright red and beginning to swell, but the burns could wait.

“Those can wait.” I paused as I maneuvered around her fingers holding the gash closed. “Anything else?”

“Is his breathing supposed to be so ragged?”

“Likely a side effect of the explosion,” I replied. “Not much I can do about it except monitor it. He’ll be able to help with that when he wakes up. How long were you gone and when did you return?”

She was silent for a moment, thinking. “I left shortly before one and returned not long before you arrived.”

It was after three now. Holmes could have been bleeding on the floor for over two hours, but I suspected it had been quite a bit less than that, judging by the amount of blood and how badly the cut was bleeding. The cut was just bad enough that he had passed out from lack of oxygen, exertion, and blood loss as soon as he reached his room. Perhaps half an hour, I decided. Maybe a bit less. There was a chance he would wake up soon after I finished dressing the wound, but the cut was in a bad spot. He would be on bedrest for a while to avoid ripping his stitches.

I barely refrained from speaking the word that sprang to my mind. Holmes got bored even between cases, and I never liked the drawn look that came to his eyes, the brooding that came over him when he went too long without something to do. He had kept his promise thus far, but I knew the fiend was never closer to waking than when he was bored. How would I be able to keep him occupied long enough for his injuries to heal? It would take several days, and that was assuming there were no further complications.

Complications. Possible complications of blood loss included... I pushed that thought aside, not yet ready to revisit the memory of finding him in a pool of blood. I would take things as they came, and for now, I had to believe he would wake in an hour or two. How to occupy him?

I finished the sutures and began wrapping the bandage as I considered that, but nothing came to mind. Most of my fallback plans involved Holmes being able to move around, however slowly.

With Mrs. Hudson’s help, I laid Holmes on his bed, then pulled up a chair and began dressing the burns on his hands. It would have been easier to watch over him in the sitting room, but there was no way I could carry him that far, even with Mrs. Hudson’s help.

She cleaned up the floor then took herself downstairs, and I knew she would be up shortly with tea. She _always_ appeared with tea when I sat vigil over Holmes, and I imagined she did the same when he sat vigil over me.

He was still stable when I finished cleaning and bandaging the burns, and I carefully changed his bloodstained clothes for something loose enough to avoid catching on his bandages.

That done, I was just waiting for him to wake, so, monitoring his breathing—still ragged—and pulse—slightly better—I let my thoughts drift.

He would be on bedrest for three days, maybe four, depending on how the wound was healing. The natural fatigue from blood loss would force him to sleep the first day or so, but after that, he would be awake and bored. How could I help him stay occupied without letting him out of bed? He got so tetchy when he had no puzzle on which to focus.

Puzzle. The thought stuck in my mind. He hated jigsaw puzzles, but jigsaws were by no means the only kind of puzzles.

The idea came to me just as I heard Mrs. Hudson returning with the tea and a few cold sandwiches.

“How is he?” she asked as she set the tray down.

“Still asleep. Would you send someone on an errand for me?”

“Certainly.”

I described the item I remembered seeing in a shop down the street the week before, and, as Mrs. Hudson went to call in the Irregular I had noticed when I had gotten out of the cab, I settled in to wait for Holmes to wake.


	2. Chapter 2

Nearly three hours later, I was just beginning to worry that I had missed an injury when Holmes stirred, and relief washed over me. Unable to grasp his hand due to the burns, I laid a hand on his arm.

“Holmes?”

His eyes opened, then slid over to focus on me.

“Wat—” the word broke off as he descended into a coughing fit, his lungs protesting whatever fumes had so messed with his breathing.

“Easy,” I told him, pouring a glass of water and helping him drink. “Take it slow. Do you remember what happened?”

He nodded and swallowed. “Che…mistry,” he got out through his sore throat.

“Your experiment exploded, did it not?” I asked, and he nodded confirmation. “I would appreciate if you would not scare me like that again,” I told him, my light tone belying the real fear I had felt when I first saw him face down in a pool of blood. “Of all the things I wanted to do this afternoon, finding you unconscious in your bedroom was not one of them.”

Apology appeared in his gaze, though he didn’t try to speak it, and he reached for the glass of water again.

“Careful,” I warned just as he gasped, having tugged uncomfortably on his stitches. I helped him take another drink as he carefully took inventory.

“Diag…nosis?”

“You lost a lot of blood, have twenty-eight stitches in your stomach, and have first- and second-degree burns on your hands,” I told him, reaching for my stethoscope. “Inhale.”

His lungs were clear, telling me his difficulty speaking and the roughness I could still hear in his breathing was all in his throat, and I said as much as I put the stethoscope back in my bag.

“Are you finding it hard to breathe?”

He shook his head. “Sore,” he rasped.

The fumes must have inflamed his throat and vocal cords, I decided, which was a much better result than the possibility of lung damage. Leaving him for a moment, I returned with a small container of honey and stirred a dollop into his water. It would coat his throat and help ease the irritation.

“Better?” I asked after he had taken a few sips.

He nodded. “Prognos—?”

The word chopped off abruptly at the end, but I knew what he was asking.

“Bedrest,” I confirmed as he frowned at me. “Three days, maybe four. Long enough to recover from the blood loss and lessen the chance of you tearing your stitches.”

The glare he was leveling at me said he would be fighting that mandate, but he would have to fight it later. His eyes were already closing.

“Drugged,” he grumbled, and I laughed.

“Not this time,” I told him, noting that idea as a possibility for later. “You are just tired.”

I settled deeper into my chair as sleep claimed him, prepared to monitor him through the night to ensure there would be no complications from his bloodletting.


	3. Chapter 3

Mrs. Hudson sat with him for a few minutes while I hurriedly cleaned up, but she went back downstairs when I returned, and Holmes slept the night away, not even rousing when Mrs. Hudson brought up a light snack before she went to bed. I stayed by his side, reading a book, dozing in my chair to jerk awake from nightmares, monitoring him for complications. The night passed slowly, though uneventfully.

He stirred the next morning when I was checking his stitches.

“Wats’n?”

“Good morning, Holmes.” He blinked his eyes open and focused on me. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” he admitted, and I was glad to hear his difficulty speaking had diminished.

I stirred a pain reliever into a glass of water, and he made a face at the taste but drank it, telling me he was hurting more than he was letting on. I checked him over, looking for signs of further injury or complications.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“I was experimenting with iodine, and there must have been some ammonia left in the beaker.”

Those elements combined to make a most volatile explosive, and I nodded, helping him sit up fully. “That matches the burn marks I found. I’m guessing you opened the window to clear the fumes and went to your bedroom to bandage the cut while the room aired?”

I barely heard the affirmative around the glass of water he was sipping. “The next thing I remember is waking up with you standing over me.”

I studied him, checking his color and reaffirming to myself that he would have no lasting effects from this particular misadventure, and he caught my expression.

“What is it?”

I shook my head, unwilling to push him into a conversation that would only make him uncomfortable.

“Watson?” The word carried a note of stubbornness, and I tried to redirect him.

“You mentioned before I left wanting to update your commonplace books. Would you rather I bring you those or the morning paper?”

“I would _rather_ you let me out of bed,” he grumbled, “but I suppose that is out of the question.”

“Spectacular deduction,” I shot back with a grin. “I really do not know how you do it.”

He rolled his eyes at my facetiousness but returned to the previous topic. “What are you avoiding telling me?”

I turned, busying myself putting some of the breakfast Mrs. Hudson had brought up on a plate for him. “Nothing, of course.” I set the plate on a tray over his bed. “I know you usually do not eat breakfast, but you need to eat something, even if it is over the course of the next hour."

He disregarded the plate in front of him, despite knowing just as well as I that he would need to eat and rest to recover from losing so much blood.

“Watson.”

I paused in preparing a plate of my own, knowing what he was asking, and sighed. At times, I wished he were not so stubborn. He would not drop the topic until I answered his question, but I had no idea how to answer it.

I sat heavily back down in my chair and tabbed his pulse, reassuring myself that it was stronger, that I hadn’t returned home too late to do anything—a common theme to my dreams the night before.

A frown crossed his face, and I knew he had deduced most of what I couldn’t say.

“I cannot give up my experiments,” he told me quietly. “You know that.”

“Yes, I know that. It’s just…” I trailed off, then continued as I found my words. “I just wish you would be more careful. This one was close, too close. You created an extremely reactive contact explosive, and then detonated it. It is a miracle I did not return home to find you dead. If my train had been delayed an hour longer…” I let the thought trail off.

He tried to fidget and winced as he pulled his stitches, and I opened my mouth to change the topic when an image from the last—and worst—dream pushed itself to the fore. I closed it again with a barely-concealed wince, dropping my gaze to the plate in front of me.

Silence reigned for a long moment as I fought for something to say. Unable to fidget without pulling his stitches, Holmes’ discomfort was nevertheless apparent, and I knew he would retreat into his thoughts soon if I did not change the topic.

“Eat your breakfast,” I finally got out, and took a bite of my own as an example. “Do you want the paper or your books?”

“Paper first, then the books,” he answered, his gaze on the bite he was pushing around his plate. “Can I at least move out to the settee?”

“Perhaps tomorrow. That cut is in a bad spot. I do not want you ripping the stitches trying to walk, and I cannot carry you that far.”

The argument died unspoken as he registered _why_ I could not currently carry him, and he returned his attention to the food as I got up.

Rain still beat against the window as I limped into the sitting room for the paper, and I wondered if it would change to snow. My shoulder seemed to think it would; my leg was just complaining from the cold.

It took two trips, but I set out the paper, his books, and the magazine editions from which he primarily got his information at the foot of his bed and placed a pair of scissors and a pot of paste on the table next to him. He started clumsily flipping through the papers with his bandaged hands, marking interesting articles with the pen that seemed to follow him around.

I settled myself in the chair with a book in my hand to pretend to read, and the morning passed with only occasional conversation. Occasionally, I looked up to see Holmes dozing. Still fatigued from blood loss, he resorted to taking short naps, dozing in his spot against the headboard and returning to his current project when he woke.

Several hours later, I closed my book and stood to get another when Holmes spoke for the first time in hours.

“Why are you holding a book if you do not intend to read it?”

“Excuse me?”

He smirked at the turn of phrase but declined to take the bait. “You have been staring at that book for hours, turning a page every now and then, but your thoughts have been elsewhere. Why hold a book you have no intention of reading?”

I turned my back to him, limping into the sitting room before rolling my eyes. Of course, he would notice. Why wouldn’t he? Still, I refused to give him the answer he was seeking.

“I have no idea what you are talking about. That was a very nice book. You might like it, actually. It’s about—”

He cut me off with a growl of frustration, and I hid a smirk in the bookshelf. There was no way I was going to admit that I had just spent the last several hours planning ways to occupy him. Picking out another book I knew well, I made my way back to the bedroom.

“While you are in a stopping place,” I said as he closed one magazine and moved to the next, “I need to check your bandages.”

The look on his face displayed his thoughts on _that_ proposal rather succinctly, but he moved his books out of the way and held out his hands first.

I slowly unwrapped the bandages, checking their condition as I went and noting when the color changed. Burns tended to leak as they healed, especially the deeper burns he had on his palms, and the color of that leakage said a lot about the state of the injury. Red meant he was using his hands too much and I needed to keep the bandages moist, and yellow could mean infection, but his bandages were clear, reassuring me that the burns were healing nicely.

“How much discomfort is there when using your hands?” I asked as I inspected the burns themselves.

He hesitated but answered, knowing the response would dictate how long the bandages remained.

“Not much,” he told me, his hand flinching as I unexpectedly touched a tender spot. “Mostly in my palm.”

I nodded. That matched what I was seeing. His fingers and left hand had mostly mild burns, but he had been holding the beakers in his right hand, and it showed in the full-thickness burn centered in his palm.

“Your palms need to stay bandaged for a while longer, but I think we can leave the ones off your fingers for now. Just be careful. You do not want to get that paste in the burn.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. The paste was just flour and water, and I knew he was wondering what about it would be so horrible on a burn. I smirked. “Remember the sand in your sunburn? Now make it stick.”

He scowled at me, remembering as well as I did the time he had spent too much time on the beach after one of our cases and turned his pale skin a bright red. He woke up the next morning with many tiny particles of the sand he had tracked into his bed stuck to every inch of his sunburn. He had complained about it for days.

Finished with his hands, I helped him lay flat without pulling his stitches and examined the gash on his stomach. It showed no signs of infection, and the bandages were clear. I redressed the wound quickly enough. He let me help him sit back up, and I returned to my book and he to his newspapers.

By the time supper drew near, I was having trouble keeping myself upright. A long day of travel and a sleepless night took their toll, and with Holmes out of danger, I wanted nothing more than to collapse into my own bed for a few hours.

The problem with that was the knowledge that the stubborn fool would try to pull himself out of bed as soon as I left the room, possibly ripping open his stitches in the process. I had barely convinced him to let me help him the last time he needed to reach the edge of the bed. How could I keep him sitting or lying down if I was not here to guilt him into staying put?

I thought of what he had accused me the night before and closed my book, taking advantage of presumably needing another one to get up.

“Go to bed, Watson. I will be fine for the night.”

I was too tired to even roll my eyes. “I’m fine, Holmes. I will be right back. Stay in bed!”

He huffed in annoyance but turned back to the article he was reading, and I felt confident enough to go through the sitting room and out to the landing.

My timing was perfect, and I caught Mrs. Hudson just coming up the stairs with our supper. I exchanged the tray for a small packet I had gotten from my medical bag.

“When you come up to get the supper tray,” I said quietly, trying not to arouse Holmes’ suspicions, “bring a pot of tea and two empty cups. Put this in the bottom of one cup. I will be able to cover the taste when I pour the tea over it.”

She easily recognized the packet and nodded, piercing me with a knowing gaze. “You need to get some rest, yourself, Doctor.”

“Soon, Mrs. Hudson. I need to make sure Holmes is alright, first.”

A smile lit her eyes as she realized what I was planning and why, and she chuckled. “He is going to be furious with you. I’ll keep an ear out for him tonight.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

She turned back down the stairs as I took the tray into Holmes’ bedroom, still limping from the cold and damp.

“Holmes!” I snapped as I walked in.

He looked at me guiltily, caught trying to stand, and I set the tray on his end table. “I have taught you enough medicine for you to know what will happen if you rip your stitches,” I snapped at him, my exhaustion mixing with my worry. “Do you really want to make me find you face down on the floor again?”

He made no reply, only carefully turning on the bed to sit against the headboard, and I handed him a plate of food, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm down.

“Were you going for something or just being stubborn?” I asked after a moment.

He swallowed a bite of chicken. “The book I was using fell off the bed.” He gestured to the corner of the bed nearest my chair, and I leaned over to see his book lying open on the floor.

I picked it up without a word and set it within reach before turning to my supper, and a tense silence fell over the room. I was already regretting snapping at him but hadn’t yet calmed down enough to find the words to apologize, and I picked at my food, almost too tired to eat. The time passed slowly. I kept a careful eye on him, both to make sure he was eating and to check for problems, but it wasn’t until I heard Mrs. Hudson on the stairs that I managed to mutter an apology.

He glanced at me, surprise in his gaze for some reason I could not fathom, but Mrs. Hudson opened the door before he could decide on a reply.

“Here is the tea you asked for, Doctor,” she said, carrying it over to a side table. As I had hoped, Holmes immediately thought I was planning to sit up with him again and opened his mouth to protest. Mrs. Hudson never paused as she bustled around the room, however, gathering Holmes’ plate from the bed and taking mine from me with a smirk she concealed from Holmes. “Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Hudson. This should do for the night.”

“Alright.” She picked up the tray and turned towards the door. “Get some rest, Doctor,” she said, again setting me up. “You look nearly asleep on your feet.”

“I’ll be alright, Mrs. Hudson. Good night.”

I turned toward the tea tray as she shut the door behind her, easily spotting the powder in the bottom of one cup. I poured the tea over it, ensuring it dissolved completely before stirring in a bit of honey and setting it on Holmes’ end table. He ignored it for the moment, watching me as I turned to prepare my own cup.

“She is right, Watson. You need to sleep.”

I leveled a look at him as I sat down, carefully cradling my cup the way I always did when I was tired or cold—in this case, I was both, but I would let him make his own deduction. “For the last time, Holmes, I’ll be fine. I need to make sure nothing goes wrong in the night.”

“Nothing is going to go wrong,” he told me. “I am perfectly fine. Go to bed!”

I ignored him, opening another book I had shoved into the pocket of my dressing gown and beginning to read as I sipped my tea.

Actually reading, for the first time that day, instead of thinking, I still noticed when he finally picked up his cup of tea and took a drink, and I settled further into my chair, as if prepared to sit there the night through.

Still watching me, he returned to the magazine he had been searching, sipping his tea between articles, and it wasn’t long before his head began to nod, the fatigue of his injury combining with the sleeping powder I had put in his tea. I ignored it, pretending to be caught up in my book as he slowly nodded off. If I had looked up or said anything, he would have fought harder to stay awake, and I was ready to seek my own bed.

Finally, his eyes stayed closed, and I closed my book. Setting it and my cup on the table, I checked his pulse to be sure he wasn’t faking—he’d done it before—then moved him to lay flat, stacked his books within easy reach, and turned down the gas.

Mrs. Hudson stood outside the door, something very close to a smirk on her face.

“Did he suspect you?” she asked quietly.

I glanced back at the closed door. “If he did, he didn’t let on. He will realize it in the morning, though. Make sure I’m up by eight?”

She huffed a laugh. “Of course. I’ll not take his irritation in your stead, Doctor!”

My grin widened, but I was not awake enough to laugh. “Even though you helped? You are as culpable as me.”

She swatted at me. “Get you gone. I did no such thing. I don’t know what’s in those packets, after all.” Her innocent smirk nearly set me to laughing despite my fatigue, and I turned toward the stairs.

“Good night, Mrs. Hudson. And thank you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Eight came much too early for my liking, but I stumbled out of bed at Mrs. Hudson’s call. Cracking open my door to show her I was up, I hurriedly changed clothes and limped down the stairs. The weather was only getting worse, and there was no need for me to look out a window to know that the temperature had dropped and the rainstorm had changed to an ice storm that threatened to become a blizzard.

Mrs. Hudson met me at the bottom of the stairs, eyeing me to gauge my alertness.

“He slept the night through,” she told me. “I never heard him.”

I breathed a tired sigh of relief. “Good. Will you bring up a pot of coffee with breakfast?”

“Of course,” she said as she went down the stairs, and I quietly limped into Holmes’ room.

Holmes remained exactly where I had left him, his deep, even breathing telling me he was still very much asleep, and I lightly touched his wrist to check his pulse.

It was slow and even, as in a healthy sleep, and his breathing contained none of the roughness I had heard the day before. I sank into my chair, relief that nothing untoward had happened in the night—though I had expected none, otherwise I would have stayed up no matter how tired I was—mixing with the lack of sleep. I dearly wanted to go back to bed, but Holmes would wake up any minute, and he was in no shape to rise unaided.

I could hear Mrs. Hudson below, putting together a breakfast somewhat later than we usually ate, and I opened a book, hoping its pages would keep me alert.

My timing proved nearly spot on, and Holmes stirred barely ten minutes after I sat down. I remained quiet, letting him wake up slowly.

“Watson.” My name came out close to a growl a few minutes after he woke, and I struggled to hide a tired smirk behind my novel.

“Morning, Holmes. Mrs. Hudson should have breakfast ready shortly.”

_“Watson.”_

And there was the irritation I had expected. I let it pass—somewhat. I could not let it pass completely. “I am glad you know my name, Holmes. I was not aware I was monitoring you for a concussion.”

“You drugged me.” The glare he was currently leveling at me had no effect. I had gained immunity years ago, and, besides, I was more asleep than awake at the moment.

“You needed to sleep,” I replied, turning another page.

“No. _You_ needed to sleep.”

“And how am I supposed to do that when you refuse to stay in bed?” He fell quiet, and I made no attempt to hide my smirk. “ _You_ are just irritated that you cannot do the same to me.”

I was allergic to chloral hydrate, which meant it was too dangerous for me to take any form of sleep aid. We had no idea what it was about the medicine that affected me so, but neither of us wanted a repeat of _that_ incident.

He mumbled something to the effect of not being so sure, but I just smirked. He might grumble now, but he would never do anything. The risk of a true medical problem was too great.

“Do you want any other books from the sitting room?” I asked.

He shook his head as I heard Mrs. Hudson on the stairs. “I _want_ to move _to_ the sitting room.”

“Eat,” I told him. “I will change your bandages after breakfast, and we can go from there.”

Mrs. Hudson walked in, cocking an eyebrow at me, and I knew what she was asking.

So did Holmes, apparently, for he grumbled, “No, Mrs. Hudson, I have not yet killed him for drugging me.”

My laugh was closer to a tired huff, but Mrs. Hudson would have swatted him if not for the tray of food in her hand.

“If you would _listen_ when he tells you to stay abed, Mr. Holmes, he would not have to resort to making you sleep just to get some rest himself.” She finished laying out the food on Holmes’ table and turned to leave. “Like a child, at times, you are.”

He merely huffed, not gratifying the remonstration with a reply, and she swept out of the room with a worried glance in my direction.

Holmes was quiet through breakfast, and I let him think. He rarely spoke much so soon after waking, and I was much too tired to attempt any form of conversation. Once I had stacked both our plates on the tray for Mrs. Hudson to collect, he held out his hands for me to re-bandage first.

“Well, Doctor?” he asked as I finished examining his stitches, unable to wait for me to speak up.

“I will help you move to the settee this morning,” I relented as I anchored a bandage to prevent his clothes tugging the stitches, “after Mrs. Hudson takes the breakfast tray and I have cleared the floor to make sure you do not trip.”

He frowned at the wait but made no argument, likely realizing that the delay was just as much for me as it was for him. My wounds were throbbing to the beat of the storm outside, and I would have to use my stick as a balance aid to prevent my leg from buckling under his weight. I rarely hated my old injuries more than when the weather kicked up.

It took me several minutes of moving about the rooms to ensure that there was a wide enough path to the settee that neither of us would trip, and by the end, I almost needed my stick just for myself, never mind helping Holmes.

After another several minutes of maneuvering to get him upright without pulling his stitches—the abdomen was such a vital spot, he felt their presence nearly every time he moved—he was finally sitting on the edge of the bed, ready for me to help him stand. He frowned when he noticed my stick in my right hand, noticeable because I rarely used it inside, but I gave him no chance to comment as I coached him in how I planned to lift him.

With his arm somewhat tentatively draped over my left shoulder, we carefully hobbled into the sitting room, my limp making us wobble like a pair of drunks. Only once did I have true reason to be grateful for my stick, when he tried to move too quickly and grabbed my shoulder. He grabbed in just the wrong spot, sending a jolt of pain shooting through the scar and making me gasp, my leg nearly buckling from the pain in my shoulder. I stopped moving for the briefest moment to push the pain aside before continuing the last few steps to the settee, ignoring his apology for reflexively squeezing my shoulder as I did so.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him, still slightly breathless after I caught him studying me from his seat on the settee. “No harm done.”

He didn’t dispute me, but I did notice him watching me as I limped back and forth from his bedroom a few times to carry the books and papers from his room to lay them in easy reach. That finished, I was more than ready to sink into my chair by the fire, so I pulled several novels from my shelf to avoid having to get up again. The result of Mrs. Hudson’s errand two days before I also kept nearby in case Holmes got restless, though that remained separate from my stack of books to read.

Still keeping an eye on me, Holmes started digging through his books, and the morning passed slowly. I was struggling to stay attentive, and several times jerked awake after dozing in my chair. Each time, I glanced over at Holmes, but he was still on the settee paging through his magazines and pasting articles into one of his commonplace books, and I went back to the novel in front of me.

Holmes kept himself occupied for several hours, but I recognized the signs of him growing restless after lunch. Nearing the end of my novel, I gave him a couple minutes to settle back into a project. When he continued fidgeting a few minutes later, I closed that book and opened the one I had asked Mrs. Hudson to get.

It was a book of supposedly advanced riddles, organized by difficulty, and I hoped to get Holmes interested in them. I had never gained an interest in riddles, as I rarely possessed the mental acumen to turn the words over long enough to grasp the answer. Holmes, however, might enjoy them. All I had to do was get him interested.

The easiest way to do that would be to fail at them, myself, so I read the first page. It stumped me, of course, and I read it again. The fruit of a plant and two lofty trees? How could one carry around two places of worship?

I read it for the third time, and Holmes finally realized I had stopped turning pages.

“Alright, Watson?”

“Hmm?” I responded as if not fully paying attention to him. “Oh, fine, Holmes. Just trying to figure out this riddle.”

“What riddle?”

I covered a smirk. That had been easier than expected. “I found this book of riddles the other day and bought it on impulse.” I paused, staring at the page in front of me. “They are harder than I expected.”

Normally, he would be reading over my shoulder by this point, working the riddle for himself. As he knew I would scold him for getting up, he settled for staring at me, waiting for me to read it to him.

So I did.

“I have a large Box,” I started slowly, “with two lids, two caps, three established Measures, and a great number of articles a Carpenter cannot do without. Then I have always by me a couple of good Fish, and a number of a smaller tribe, beside two lofty Trees, fine Flowers, and the fruit of the indigenous Plant; a handsome Stag; two playful animals; and a number of smaller and less tame Herd. Also, two Halls, or Places of Worship, some Weapons of warfare, and many Weathercocks. The Steps of a Hotel; The House of Commons on the eve of a Dissolution; Two Students or Scholars, and some Spanish Grandees, to wait upon me. All pronounce me a wonderful piece of Mechanism, but few have numbered up the strange medley of things which compose my whole.” I paused another moment, as if stumped (well, I was stumped, but this was more for his benefit than for mine), before continuing, “It finishes by asking what is described.”

A frown of concentration appeared on his face, and he gingerly leaned back into the settee, thinking.

“Read it again,” he more commanded than asked.

I did, and he fell silent, thinking it through for several minutes before he hazarded an answer.

“Is it a country?”

I flipped to the back of the book for the answer. “No.”

He returned to his thoughts. I pretended to read, but in truth, I was closer to falling asleep than I was to becoming interested in any book within reach.

I had just started to nod off when he let out an exuberant, “Ah!”

Barely covering that he had startled me awake, I looked over to see a triumphant grin on his face. “It is the human body,” he said.

“You are correct. Can you figure out this one?”

I flipped a few pages to another one and read it aloud.

“Who killed the greatest number of chickens?”

Silence reigned after I finished, and he stared at me.

“That is it?”

I scanned the page again and nodded. “That is the riddle. ‘Who killed the greatest number of chickens?’”

I had already looked at this one’s answer, and I expected him to get it quickly. Sure enough, his frown of thought was quickly replaced by a twitched grin.

“It is Claudius.”

I nodded, letting my own smile free. Shakespeare was one of the few authors on which we agreed. “Hamlet’s father said Claudius did ‘murder most foul.’” I flipped the pages, looking for another one as I sipped my coffee. “Here is one.

There is one that has a head without an eye,

And there’s one that has an eye without a head:

You may find the answer if you try;

And when all is said,

Half the answer hangs upon a thread!”

He thought about that for a long moment, mumbling to himself as he repeated it through a couple times before he opened his eyes.

“Pins and needles,” he announced. He looked at me for another one, just enough interest in his gaze that I could tell he was beginning to think these were rather simple. He was showing off more than actually interested.

I flipped chapters, intending to solve that problem, and read,

“I’m captain of a party small,

Whose number is but five;

But yet do great exploits, for all,

And ev’ry man alive.

With Adam I was seen to live,

Ere he knew what was evil;

But no connexion have with Eve,

The serpent or the devil.

I on our Savior’s Laws attend,

And fly deceit and vice;

Patriot and Protestant befriend,

But Infidels despise.

Matthew and Mark both me have got;

But to prevent vexation,

St. Luke and John possess me not,

Tho’ found in ev’ry nation.”

Perhaps that one would take him a while, I thought, given the Biblical references. They might send him on a tangent, believing it was the Book itself that held the clue to the riddle. I would settle for anything that occupied him for any length of time.

He was still deep in thought after several minutes, and I started slowly flipping through the rest of the book and marking riddles I thought might stump him for longer than thirty seconds. Before long, my eyes began closing again, but Holmes spoke before I could truly begin to drift off.

“The letter A?” It was more a question than an answer, and I kept silent, unwilling to tell him if he was unsure, but he nodded a moment later. “The letter A. The rest of the vowels are the ‘party of five.’”

“Indeed.” He glanced up at my tone—I was unable to fully hide that I had been close to sleep—but I gave him no chance to comment before I found another one, presumably written by a man in Salisbury.

“I sit on a rock whilst I’m raising the wind,

But, the storm once abated, I’m gentle and kind;

I’ve kings at my feet who await but a nod,

To kneel in the dust on the ground I have trod;

Tho’ seen to the world, I’m known to but few,

The Gentile deserts me, I’m pork to a Jew;

I never have passed but one night in the dark,

And that was with Noah alone in the Ark;

My weight is three pounds, my length is a mile,

And when I’m discovered, you’ll say with a smile—

That my first and my last are the pride of this isle.”

Holmes frowned again, though whether he was frowning at me for not letting him comment or frowning at the riddle I was not sure. He settled in to think on it, however, which was all that mattered to me. I marked a few other riddles in the book and covered a yawn, fighting to stay awake.

I opened my eyes without realizing I had closed them and jerked upright, nearly dropping the book balanced in my hand in the process. Immediately, I checked on Holmes, and I nearly breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him slowly paging through one of his commonplace books. The mantle clock said just over an hour had passed, though the storm outside was so dark it could have been midnight, so either Holmes had given up on the riddle, or he had an answer but had decided to let me sleep. Whichever the case, I started flipping back through the book, making sure I correctly remembered the last riddle I had given. He would want me to either check his guess or read the riddle to him again.

“Does that one _have_ an answer?” he asked after a moment.

I smirked as I read the last page. “Of a sort,” I replied. “Why? Are you stuck?”

“Of course not,” he denied. “It just would not be the first time you gave me an unsolvable problem simply to keep me busy.”

“I wonder why,” I muttered, thinking of how he got when he was bored as I flipped pages.

He heard me, of course. “Oh, give me the book, and go back to sleep.”

Stopping my perusal, I stared at him for a moment, realizing he knew what I had been doing—had likely known the whole time—and had simply been playing along.

He read part of the question in my expression. “You had me until the vowels riddle,” he admitted, and I gave a half-hearted chuckle as I stood up. I had done so many crosswords over the years that riddles were not much of a jump. I had been banking on the similarity to gain his interest, but my lack of sleep had worked against me. Being unable to hide that I had nearly drifted off was probably what had given me away. If I had been interested in the riddles for myself, I would not have been falling asleep over them.

I made no apology, however, nor would I. Aside from helping him keep his promise, even the Yarders tried to avoid tangling with a bored Holmes unless they had a problem for him. The only thing worse than a bored detective was when he fell into one of his Black Moods, and sometimes boredom propelled him into one such mood. I would do anything to prevent that.

Dropping the bookmarked book on the table next to him, I claimed the blanket Mrs. Hudson had left on the back of the settee and settled into my chair again, quickly drifting off into a light sleep. I would hear him if he tried to get up—I hoped.

Holmes let me sleep for several hours, apparently spending the time reading the riddle book, though I did check on him at one point to find him asleep, the book resting on his lap. I resettled into the chair, grateful he had found a way to pass the time. He woke a couple of hours before supper, and the sound of him stirring roused me from a light doze.

Deciding not to comment on his nap, I opened one of the books I had left near the chair that morning and lost myself in the novel instead of returning to sleep. I would have issues sleeping later if my nap now continued much longer, no matter that I felt I could easily sleep the night through.

I had expected Holmes to ask when I would let him get up, but he never did, remaining quiet even as I checked his bandages in his room that night. The wound was healed enough he would probably be fine if he got up on his own, but I would take no chances, and I resigned myself to sleeping in the chair beside his bed again. I would not be able to pull off drugging him two nights in a row. It was better than not sleeping at all, and it was certainly better than the chance of there being a problem in the night. That did not mean I was looking forward to it, however. The chair in his bedroom was comfortable, but it was not _that_ comfortable, especially with how much my old wounds were complaining about the storm.

“Go to bed, Watson,” he told me from his nest amidst the blankets as I slowly made my way around his room. We were on day three of this storm, and it was only getting worse. Holmes’ room had no fireplace, and I was bringing several blankets from the sitting room in an effort to stay warm overnight and not wake up unable to move in the morning.

“I am,” I replied.

“Not in the chair,” he insisted. “In the bed. Surely you remember where it is?”

I let the comment pass. “You may need me in the night,” I said simply, laying out one of the blankets on the chair in a way I knew would create a semi-comfortable place for me to sleep.

“Watson.” Something in his tone made me look up, and I found his grey eyes boring into mine. “ _Go to bed._ I will not get up before you come down in the morning.”

I stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide what to do. Finally, I nodded, knowing he meant what he said. The way he was staring at me told me he was somehow more aware of my exhaustion than he had been the night before, and that element of worry over me would serve to keep him off his feet for the night.

Ensuring the water pitcher, a glass, and a few other articles were within his reach, I bid him good night and limped my way upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found the riddles in a Victorian riddle article on mentalfloss.com. For anyone interested, the last riddle's answer was lost years ago, but it is believed to be a raven. Ravens were once believed to forecast the weather, they were worshipped by ancient peoples, they're rarely seen but familiar to most, they're forbidden as food in the Old Testament, a pair accompanied Noah on the ark (where one was left alone after Noah released its mate--the dove was later), they weight roughly 3 lbs and can fly a mile with ease, and the first and last letters of the word raven--RN--is the abbreviation of the British Royal Navy, considered the "pride of the British Isles" in the 19th century.


	5. Chapter 5

I woke the next morning to frost on my window. The ice had finally changed to snow in the night, and it was several inches thick and still falling. As much as I wanted to hurry to check on Holmes, my leg forced me to take the stairs slowly. I would be glad when the storm moved out, if only because my leg would stop complaining at every movement.

Limping my way into Holmes’ room, I was relieved to find him still abed, the cocoon of blankets he had made the night before proving that he had kept his word. He stirred when I opened the door, studying me with a keen gaze that said he had been awake for a few minutes already.

He continued studying me as I began changing the bandages, and I wondered what he was thinking. I knew better than to ask, however. He would tell me in time—or not—but asking him would make no difference. He would only ignore or redirect the question.

He stayed quiet as I worked, watching me with a serious expression that was starting to worry me.

“Alright, Holmes?” I finally asked as I examined the burn on his right palm.

His gaze snapped away, as if he had just realized he had been staring at me for several minutes. “Of course.”

“Are you in pain?”

He shook his head, watching me again as I checked his stitches, and I sighed.

“Did you change my hair color, again?” How he could have done so, I had no idea, but the question may serve to break his thoughts loose, or at least make him stop staring at me as if he expected me to collapse. Tired as I felt, I was not the one with twenty-eight stitches in me.

He twitched a grin at the memory but shook his head in denial, and I resigned myself to not knowing.

“How uncomfortable are your stitches?” I asked instead, trying to decide if I could let him up.

He tried to pull a face as his answer, but I stared at him, patiently waiting for a verbal reply.

“They itch,” he said honestly, “but they do not hurt as they did. My range of movement before I can feel them is greater, as well.”

I thought for a moment, comparing his words with the appearance of the wound, and made my decision. I hoped I would not regret it.

“I think you can get up today, provided you move slowly and stay off the stairs. If you overdo it,” I cautioned before he could move, “you will go back on bed rest, and for several days.”

Relief appeared in his eyes, and he nodded his thanks. I stayed nearby in case he required help, but he cautiously pulled himself to his feet and joined me in the sitting room for breakfast.

The day passed much more quickly now that Holmes was free to move about, as the freedom of movement meant he no longer went without instead of asking me to get something for him. He steered clear of the chemistry table, for which I was grateful, but he evidently decided his books needed reorganizing, and soon the sitting room was a mess of books and paper that limited my ability to get around.

I made no complaint, preferring to know he was occupied to being able to get out of my chair. At the rate he was going, he would have it all picked up by supper, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

He kept himself well occupied for two days after I let him out of bed, and I began to hope he would be able to occupy himself until he was healed enough to take another case, but the weather conspired against me. The rainstorm had turned into a full blizzard, and five days after his injury, it finally rolled out, leaving us snowed in. Baker Street was a winter wonderland devoid of movement, and Holmes had run out of stuff to do. When he continued fidgeting for over an hour and I could see he would much rather be pacing, something he could not do until his stitches came out, I knew what could come next. The possibility of him sinking into a Black Mood forced me to enact one of my fallback plans.

“Watson!” He stormed his way into the sitting room where I was seated by the fire. “Why do you keep hiding my things?!”

I turned to another page of the paper I had picked up in a hurry, hiding the smirk on my face behind its pages. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Then why is your paper upside down?”

Blast his perceptiveness. “Because I am not reading the paper,” I admitted, finishing with, “I am reading the magazine I have in it.”

I was a horrible liar, and we both knew it. I fought to keep my voice steady, rattling off the half-truth while hiding my face behind the paper. I must have succeeded, for his voice gained a suspicious edge.

“What magazine?”

I dared to peek at him over the paper, one eyebrow raised.

“Are you sure you want to know that?” I asked, then looked back at the paper, though I kept him in sight as I let his active imagination do the work for me.

He colored spectacularly and hurriedly returned to his room to continue his hunt for his dressing gown.

I lowered the paper with a grin, revealing his favorite pipe I held in my lap, and looked around for a place to hide it.

After noticing the signs of his growing boredom that morning, I had managed to palm his pen when he left the room for a moment. From there, I hid another item as he searched for the first, frustrating him to no end that he had not caught me in the act when he knew as well as I did that I was hiding his things as soon as his back was turned. I, for one, was having a blast with this prank of mine. It had been much too long since Baker Street had had a prank war. This might remedy that, I believed.

“Aha!” I heard from the other room, and I limped my way back to my chair, not wanting him to catch me shoving his pipe into one of the clean chemistry beakers.

He stalked into the room a moment later, his stride nearly back to normal as it grew closer to when I could remove his stitches.

“How, pray tell, do you think my dressing gown ended up tucked into bed without me?” he asked with a sly grin.

I had to fight not to laugh. “Probably the same way your tobacco ended up in the sugar bowl,” I replied, holding the paper high enough to cover the grin I strove to keep out of my voice. “You did have that client’s daughter in here a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps she released several of the fairies about which she continually talked.”

The snort of derision barely carried to my hearing, and my grin widened for a moment despite my efforts. I kept the paper up, not wanting him to know just how much amusement I was getting from hiding his things. My shoulder let out a twinge of complaint, however, and my grin turned into a wince. Folding the paper, I set it aside now that he could only read suppressed discomfort in my expression.

With a glance at the winter wonderland out the window, he seated himself across from me, moving gingerly as he used his injured abdominal wall, and started picking at the bandage still on his hand.

“Leave that alone, Holmes.”

He growled at it, casting a glance at his violin, and I knew why he was having such a hard time staying occupied. He wanted to play, but the burn would prevent him for another week, at least. The lack of music grated at him, I knew.

I understood, after all. My gaze drifted to the viola in the corner, but if my shoulder refused to steady the paper, there was no way I would be able to bow.

He chuckled. “What a pair we make.” I raised an eyebrow at him, and he continued, “My hand, your shoulder.”

I smirked, following his train of thought, but made no reply, looking around for something else I could use to occupy him while I waited for him to notice his missing pipe, book of D’s, and today’s copy of the _Lancet_.

“It is alright, Watson.”

I turned, trying to decide to what he was referring now.

He read my expression. “You do not need to occupy me. Read your book.”

I colored. Of course, he had known what I was doing. I had expected no less, but he rarely called me out on it. I hesitated in my reply, however. I wanted little more than to sit in front of the fire, but this method of occupying him at least had the benefit of amusement for me, and it kept him from growing bored.

“Watson,” he repeated when I made no answer. “I have plenty to do. Do not worry about it. You do not need to occupy me.”

I studied him, trying to decide if he was being truthful or just placating me, and he twitched a grin before getting up to rummage through his case notes.

I opened a long novel with a faint smile and leaned back in my chair, content to sit near the fire until the weather stopped making my old injuries complain, and I soon lost myself in an adventure by the sea.

“Watson!”

I chuckled into my book, knowing he had just found the commonplace book I had shoved into a random case file.

“I told you the fairies liked you,” was my only reply. He grumbled and returned to wrecking my filing system.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so finishes my longest story to date. Hope you all enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always greatly appreciated :)


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